who can be killed? (and who can kill them)

horsemouth has been out and watered the chickens and unleashed the tomatoes...

ok that's not right. he watered the tomatoes and unleashed the chickens. the chickens seem to have recovered their appetites. he's not on top of the chicken mite problem yet (but progress is being made). 

at some point he's got to get on with clearing the ivy off the house. 

so horsemouth mentioned he watched 3 episodes of dexter (two from various series of it, the third being the first episode of the prequel).

spoiler alert

now dexter is a serial killer who kills other serial killers (having been inculcated in the belief that this was a moral use of his talents by his policeman stepfather).  the other serial killers are fair game (at least for the viewers). of course, should he be caught, the police and the courts (and indeed wider society) would be obliged to take a different view - due process, day in court, state execution. 

so who can be killed? people the state says can be killed (and only them). 

and who can kill them? only people deputised to do this by the state. 

something similar is going on in caleb williams by william godwin. 

horsemouth is reading this and has even made some progress.

two squires contend - the one a paragon of virtue, a man to whom honour is important and the other a provincial oik brutal and prone to rages. in their contention only the little people (those without honour and reputation) are destroyed.

at some point the oik (tyrell) is murdered. suspicion falls upon the honourable one but he successfully defends his honour on the basis that tyrell being murdered deprived him of the opportunity to fight a duel with him and thus the opportunity to satisfy his honour (by killing him).

under the auspices of a duel a man may be killed (as long as it is a matter of honour and the people duelling are honourable men). 

the murderers are eventually found, farmers who had been ruined by tyrell for their pretensions to honour and rank.  (they are then tried and executed by the state). 

and this is in many ways william godwin's point - despite the different characters of the two squires their effect upon people of lesser rank is much the same. 

horsemouth wishes he still had his copy of ismail kadare's broken april - his novel about the albanian blood feud system. he wishes he had his copy of homo sacer by giorgio agamben with him (but that is back in a box in town).

in the wider world we know who can be killed and who can kill them. 

howard was asking if horsemouth had written any new songs or any new lyrics lately. he has to admit that he has not. he has a brace of songs he wants to get recorded and out but many are either covers or from a long time ago. it makes little sense to him to start on new stuff when he has all this not-quite-actually-existing stuff to finish off.